The AU’s decision to absorb NEPAD may not make the initiative any more specific, but at least it is off the streets. Andrea’s weekly column for the (Nairobi) Star.
Libya’s Colonel Ghaddafi, aka the Brother-Leader, is probably one of my favourite dictators. Yes, it’s a little unfortunate that he rules over an actual country, with real people in it, and that it’s a country with just too much oil for the international community to be able to ignore it, but heck: he’s got a wildly eccentric dress sense, female body guards, travels in a caravan, rocks up with his tent, had himself crowned king by African traditional leaders … what’s not to like? There’s just no limit to the entertainment that the man provides.
So I was not very surprised that he took it badly, and personally, when the African Union refused to give him another year as the chair, even though he had most generously offered to pay the AU annual fees for several smaller countries (I had a fleeting vision of him waving at some minion to run it on his credit card, but then that’s probably out of synch with his desert king style: bags of gold coins perhaps, and then leave others to grapple with the problem of how this payment can be processed?) This is a man who told Ugandans that you don’t just sent revolutionaries back home. Term limits, how undignified! Upon being waved off, the Brother-Leader then threw his toys out of the pram (well, cushions out of the tent?) and stormed out in a sulk. Nudged to the sidelines along with the Brother-Leader was something that I’m less sorry to see leave: NEPAD.
NEPAD, the New Partnership for African Development, was the baby of president Thabo Mbeki from South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo from Nigeria – both continental heavyweights who had influence far beyond their borders, coming from sub-Saharan Africa’s largest and most confident economies and with a role in peacebrokering and peacekeeping initiatives. Initially, it sounded good: an agenda for the continent’s development by African leaders and organisations – clearly a common sense approach, even if I can’t stand the adjective ‘homegrown’ for anything but carrots and other agricultural produce. But then I saw the price tag for NEPAD: At one stage, NEPAD was looking for USD64bn for investments in Africa. Ambitious. And who was going to pay? Like the Brother-Leader’s approach to elections, NEPAD’s approach to financing was old school: They turned to the West. Same old, and one of the major flaws in the concept, I thought. Ghanaian economist George Ayittey estimated that the continent loses about the same amount in capital flight, corruption and the impact of war and civil war. Fix that, and alongside a bunch of other problems that this solves, you don’t need to run around asking others for cash, and then bristle at them wanting to have a say in how the money is spent.
Another issue was that it was never really clear what NEPAD was going to be. Officially, it was described as a ‘vision and strategic framework’. But with a budget and staff. Was it going to be a think tank? An implementing agency? Something in between the two? And how did it fit in with the African Union, after all, the continent’s official head organisation, and all other continental and regional bodies, and Millennium Challenge something-or-other facilities? One of NEPAD’s initiatives, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), appeared reasonably successful, but in Kenya, where it had warned of dangerous tribal divisions, this crucial warning was not heeded, and the editing process before the reports were finally released were always, shall we say, lengthy.
Well, no need to wonder any longer. Less than ten years after its ratification, NEPAD has been absorbed into the AU as the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA). An overdue step, I think, if anyone is serious about the AU as the official representation of the continent. NPCA will ‘conduct and coordinate research and knowledge management, monitor and evaluate the implementation of programmes and advocate on the AU and NEPAD vision, mission and core values.’ This is not necessarily more precise that the initial objectives, but at least NEPAD is off the streets
The foundation of NEPAD was the product of a period of optimism: more democracy across the continent, and the results of years of painful economic reforms began to show. The global financial crisis highlighted some of the still inherent weaknesses in African economies, and elections don’t equal democracy, as we’ve seen in many countries, including Kenya – perhaps a necessary reality check. The AU has done a bit better than its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), also described as a dictators’ talk shop, but that’s a fairly low bench mark. The dictator issue still lingers a little: The AU may have sent Mr Ghaddafi back home, but going after odious leaders doesn’t seem very likely: Most countries may be signatories to the Rome treaty, but now that the ICC tries to go after their own, presidents suddenly seem to have second thoughts. I hope that the AU can stop rattling around in its bureaucracy and take charge of the agenda put forward by, amongst others, NEPAD. But remember the Brother-Leader’s generous offer to cough up for the membership fees for a number of smaller states? Unless African states actually commit enough to it to pay their annual contributions – a problem not limited to a few countries only -, nobody will take it seriously, and everyone will keep chasing after aid money and abdicate responsibility.
Republished with kind permission from the (Nairobi) Star
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